>doesn't it figure that Paterno would tie the record by beating my Northwestern, and then beak it by beating your OSU? I do love and admire JoeP, but did he have to do it *that way? I don't even know what sport we're talking about here, but what does beaking it mean?----Bingley, the sport is football. Joe Paterno is the 70-something head coach of the Penn State team, and with a victory over Ohio State last Saturday, he broke the all-time record for wins. "Beak" is a typo for "break."-----Oh dear, and beak it sounded so evocative of something or other, too. I thought it might be when one of the players hurls himself face down on the ball in American football to score a try? a goal? whatever they do score in American football anyway. ----I think that you are thinking of a "touchdown," Bingley.When a team carries the ball (or catches it and retains possession in) the opponent's endzone, the team scores a touchdown, which is worth 6 points.Other ways to score in football:Point after touchdown: Upon scoring a touchdown, a team has an opportunity to kick the ball through the upright goalposts. If it does so, it gets another point.Two-point conversion: Upon scoring a touchdown, a team may, instead of kicking the point after, attempt in a single play to again penetrate the endzone with the ball. If it does so, it gets two more points.Field goal: a team may, when it has possession of the ball during regular play, attempt to kick the ball through the goalposts. If it does so, it gets three points.Safety: if a team traps the other team in its own endzone with the ball, the trapping team scores two points.For more football terms, and more precise definitions, seehttp://www.firstbasesports.com/glossaries/ftbglos.htm---quiz, Sparteye (to which I'm not certain my answer is correct): is it possible for a football game to end with a score of 1-0, and if so, how?--->a score of 1-0And would you read that as "one nil"?----Apparently the Canadian Football League (CFL) has slightly different rules about numbers of downs and scoring which some say make the game more exciting than the American version. I'm not much into football so I'm not sure, but my national pride urged me to post this bit of info anyway. The very little football I have watched was CFL football, during the Grey Cup (our finals, equivalent to the US Superbowl but played a good two months earlier, and often in the snow). Any Canadian football fans on the board want to expand on that? (Rouspeteur/BelM/plutarch?)----Funny you should mention that, Kieva, since I amost remarked in my prior post that a score of "one" is the only mathematically impossible score in football.And we would pronounce that score "one-zero" or "one-oh" or "one-nothing," Bingley, but never "one-nil."---The major differences between American and Canadian (ha! go ahead, everybody, fight about that terminology!) are: (1) the dimensions of the playing field, the Canadian field being larger; (2) the number of players, 11 in American, 12 in Canadian; (3) three downs to advance 10 yards in Canadian, but four downs in American; (4) in Canadian, a team can score one point for a rouge, awarded to a kicking or punting team if an opposing player is trapped in the end zone on a return play.For more details, see http://www.cuug.ab.ca/~leblancj/stampeders/compare.html---Sorry, didn't get time to add in all the poster's names but you are sure to know who you are.

Funny, all the threads are starting to sound like "talk to Alice" - she's been having a very bad influence. Glad to see that this thread is maintaining its delinquency.

Now, why bother with American football when they could have all played rugby, nice oval ball, men with good strong thighs and none of that unnecessary padding. I think I asked a long time ago why America persists in playing games that no-one else seems to play (who plays baseball anyway?), is it so that they always have the winning team? At least with cricket you can tour (or not) India. With soccer there is a World Cup (yes, I know that the USA qualified). With rugby you can play nice foreign countries like Australia, South Africa and New Zealand (do Canada play?) - don't you guys ever feel left out of all the fun????

most of the known universe, excepting the EU and Africa, it seems. the US teams almost never win the Little League world series anymore, usually losing out to teams from the Far East or Latin America. the Seattle major league team has two marvelous Japanese players, one of whom was the best player of the year according to many. the current 'goat' in the World Serious is a Korean relief pitcher (closer) who can't get the last out (close).

>who plays baseball anyway?> most of the known universe, excepting the EU and Africa, it seems.

Only joking, honest. Interesting, for all our immersion in all things American (McDonalds, Burger King, TGI Fridays, Friends, The Simpsons, ER, Hollywood, GAP, US Politics ....) we really don't get much US sport on terrestrial TV (which, despite burgeoning satellite channels, tends to be the sport discussed in the pub). I wonder why, given the huge success of other exports.

Maybe there are not enough slots to cover the main sporting events of Europe (endless football, rugby, horse racing, Grand Prix formula one racing, tennis, athletics, golf, boxing, show jumping, I've probably missed a few). Outside major events like the Olympics, the main overlaps are tennis, boxing and golf, I think. Mohammed Ali, Billie Jean King and Tiger Woods are as big here as I assume they are/were in the states.

I suppose that it is relatively difficult and expensive to transport horses routinely for horse races (I know that they have to do it for the Olympics) but I don't think that they show US horse races, do you get horse races from Europe? So, whilst I know that the Kentucky Derby exists, I've never seen a race. I know that Nigel Mansell moved from Formula One to Indy car racing but I don't really know what an "Indy Car" is - is it a type of car or a type of circuit? I ever seen more than five minutes of a baseball or American football game but then I don't watch much cricket or rugby either. I wonder what sport from other countries is routinely shown elsewere?

I suppose that television shows sport to its existing supporter base. Here, football fans expect to see their teams - Manchester United, Celtic, whatever in the same way that an Australian might want to see Melbourne play cricket. I think that Channel Four shows some baseball late at night and satellite TV seems to have endless sporting channels, including all the minority sports that used to complain about their lack of coverage.

I wonder if, as communications grow and people are able to choose what they watch on an individual basis from a huge number of channels our sporting worlds will merge more as has happened with our cultural worlds (theatre, cinema, TV) or will sport remain local, part of society's ritualisation of our tribal roots.

Wouldn't it be fun to have a cross-sport matchup? American football players and European rugby players could play games of football and rugby, and see who comes out with the fewest broken bones. Baseball and cricket teams could play each others' sports and see who remains awake the longest.

I love it! The real fun would be watching the team playing it's non-native sport struggling merely to remember the rules!

And as far as the MSU-Michigan football game goes, what a fantastic finish, but it *does help to be the home team, doesn't it? For those who didn't watch, Michigan State was the recipient of some creative timekeeping (:03...:02...:01...:01...:01) and a rather blatant non-call on the final (game-winning) play. I'm a Spartan fan for career reasons -- two of my bosses are MSU alumnae!

Wouldn't it be fun to have a cross-sport matchup? American football players and European rugby players...

Assuming each team playing with its respective rules and uniforms, it would be interesting to see if the American football players could manage to stay out of their committee meetings long enough to catch any of the rugby players.

My concept is, the football team and the rugby team play two separate matches, one match being a game of football, with the usual football equipment, field and rules, and one match being rugby, with the usual rugby equipment, field and rules.

I think I asked a long time ago why America persists in playing games that no-one else seems to play (who plays baseball anyway?), is it so that they always have the winning team?

That's a good question, but I think the answer is that we do play the sports everyone else does, just not very well. Soccer is becoming more and more popular here (we just qualified for the next World Cup and have a "major" league now) and there is an American national Rugby team (two, actually - M and F) and I was once gobsmacked when I saw a bunch of blokes in cricket whites playing a match one Sunday afternoon at a local park here in Vermont (it's apparently a regular occurence, as I've seen it several times now).

I wonder what sport from other countries is routinely shown elsewere?

Well, here in the States we get very little foreign sports coverage, except for the "international" sports you mentioned: golf, tennis, Olympics. You can occasionally see an important European soccer match on one of the all-sports cable channels, and American soccer (and the World Cup) get national network coverage. I'd love to see rugby and cricket and things like that, but in the classic Catch-22 of the Television Age, only very popular things are on TV, and something can only become popular if it's on TV first. I once saw the Irish Hurling Championship (no, not what you think) on the all-sports channel late one night, and I wish they showed more of it (kind of like a combination between field hockey and lacrosse using cricket-bat-like sticks).

do you get horse races from Europe? I know that Nigel Mansell moved from Formula One to Indy car racing but I don't really know what an "Indy Car" is - is it a type of car or a type of circuit?

I don't think I've ever seen an international horse race (and nowadays the only American races on network TV are the Triple Crown). And based on my limited knowledge of car racing (a "sport" becoming more popular everyday here), "Indy" cars are a type of cars like F1 (maybe identical?) and there are two (I think) competing circuits of it. The more popular car racing here is "stock" car racing (but if I ever see one of those monsters at my local dealership I'll eat my hubcaps), also called NASCAR.

Well, as more and more hockey players are Europeans and soccer is becoming (somewhat) popular here I expect that one would be weighted to the hockey players (in knowledge of their competitors' game if not in skill). How about ice hockey and field hockey?

Hey Sparteye, Although I'm not a football fan, my son played with T. J. Duckett all through high school and I did see most of those games. I was at my brother-in-law's (a UofM alumnusHi, Bill!, never could tell my little sister who to marry) Saturday and so was able to do the Nyah Nyah Nyah Nyah Nyah thang when T.J. scored in the last 5, uh, I mean 1 second. Oh, he was not a happy camper.

One of the sure things in life is that Meeeeechigan never loses a game; if by chance they come out on the short end of the score, it's always because of some officiating issue.

Of course, all the breaks they got earlier in the game, including the MSU TD which was called back, don't matter, and a senseless facemask and have two many men on the field in the final series don't matter, but a game clock which doesn't display tenths of a second (so that there could have been as much as 1.999999999~ on the clock at the last snap) will give them fodder to whine for decades to come.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

And you can quote me on that to your brother-in-law. [shit-eating-grin emoticon]

>will give them fodder to whine for decades to come.>Decades? Pffffft! The Welsh are still whingeing about a disputed try in a test against the All Blacks from almost a century ago (96 years, if memory serves)

And there is always the "hand of God" - now there is a tsuwm-style quizz for non Brits. Any idea why that troubled us so much?

We have Stock Car Racing too. I have a friend who travels for miles. Also Speedway (motor bike racing on a track, I think).

Scotland does "Curling" which I think is a little like "hurling" in Ireland. There are a few local clubs and it is shown sometimes, very late at night on TV.

The other "sports" That seem to get coverage are darts (fat men drinking large amounts of beer) and snooker (mainly thinner men). Both seem to hold world championships but forget to invite any other countries!

Scotland does "Curling" which I think is a little like "hurling" in Ireland.

From the description of "hurling" above, I would say that curling is not at all like it. In curling you try and aim these big heavy stones with handles on them at a point down a long skinny sheet of ice, and knock your competitors' stones out of the way. Your teammates sweep the ice with brooms to get the rock to go where you want it to. Canada is a big curling country, although it originated in Scotland (or so they say).

re soccer's "hand of god": I vaguely recall reference to this whilst watching soccer some years ago. touching the ball with the hands during play is illegal (outside of the goaler), so was it a disallowed goal because of a hand ball call, on which there was no discernible hand to be found? (or was it the obverse, an obvious hand-ball that was not called?)

>From the description of "hurling" above, I would say that curling is not at all like it.

Yes Bean, you are absolutely right. For some reason I'd thought that hurling was played on ice. From the details below it sounds more like Quiddich (all it needs is a few broomsticks and a snitch)!

The teamEach team consists of 15 players and a number of substitutes Three substitutes can be used during one match. A team is lined up like this: 1 goalkeeper6 defenders2 midfielders6 forwardsThe equipment The players use a hurley to strike ( or carry) the ball. ... It's made of ash wood and the end of the stick (called the bas) cannot be more than 13 cm at the widest point. The average length of a hurley is 91,5 cm.

Players are adviced to use helmets (gee, i wonder why?) but it is not compulsory. The ball is known as a sliotar, its outer coating is leather and the inside contains mainly cork, this makes the sliotar very hard, the circumference should be between 23 and 25 cm and it should weigh between 100 an 130 g.

The gameA match consists of two 30 minute halves in league matches and two 35 minute halves in championship matches.The field is 130 to 145 meters long and 80 to 90 meters wide with goal posts at either end. The goals are shaped like an "H". A point is scored if the ball goes between the bars and over the crossbar and a goal (which is 3 points) are scored if the ball passes between the goalposts under the crossbar and of course the goalkeeper. The sliotar can be carried in the hand up to four steps or during the entire match on the end of the hurley. (which would make the game a bit boring......?!........i will not go further into this..)

It can be passed by kicking, hitting it with the hurley or by passing it with the hand. (To pass the sliotar with your hand you'll have to strike it with your hand open). The sliotar can be struck with the hurley while in the air or on the ground (now..who wouldn't wear some kind of headgear!!!!!!! No wonder why the vikings had such an easy match when they came over there "some" years ago) A player may side charge another player, providing the player committing the tackle, has one foot on the ground. A player can only side charge another if the charged one is playing or possessing the sliotar.

A goalkeeper cannot be tackled inside their square, but outside you might say that he or she is begging for it. (Women also play this game!!!! But then its called Camogie)

If the sliotar goes out over the sideline the referee will reward a sideline puck. There is no off-side rule, so the ability to hit the sliotar great distanses with accuracy is of some importance. If it goes over the end line first hitting one of the defending players, a 65 meter free puck is awarded, a attacking player will then take a free puck 65 meters from the goal. Big stick, small ball,large field and wicked goalies calls for skills, This is the fastest land sport in the world!!

Here's more for your brother-in-law: a summary of officiating mistakes during the last sequence of the game which went against the Spartans.

Michigan State had the ball first and 10 at the Michigan 18. Smoker was sacked on first down next play, back to the 22 yard line. But Michigan was found to have had 12 players on the field. It took a while for the officials to sort everything out. And then when they finally made the right call, they administered the penalty incorrectly.

First, if the officials had been sharp, they would have signaled for a clock stoppage immediately. Instead, MSU had to take a time out, one which should have been returned to the Spartans when the clock was stopped for the penalty.Instead, the officials milled around and talked to each other while the Spartans went to the sideline. MSU should have retained a time out for the last :10 seconds.

Second, the officials walked off the penalty from the 22, where Smoker had been sacked. Thus, they allowed the sack to stand despite the fact that Michigan had 12 players on the field. (The stat sheet gives Michigan credit for 11 sacks on the day, but the officials counted 12 sacks, including the one that came with 12 men on the field.) The play obviously should not have stood; MSU should have had a free play. Instead, the officials walked half the distance to the goal line, from the 22, which gave MSU the ball at the UM 11, while they should have walked it off from the 18, giving MSU the ball at the 9-yard line.

Third, MSU lost the down. MSU was given second-and-three at the 11. Yes, the sack down counted. The Spartans should have retained first down, needing to get to the 8-yard line for another first down.

Soooo ~ MSU should have had first-and-one at the 9 with a time out, but as the result of the officating errors, it had lost 4 seconds as the time it took to call the time out, plus the time out, plus the down, plus the yardage. The team which was penalized by officiating error was MSU, not UM.

zzzzzfishing!!!!!!!!!!!!!???? Ain't no zzzzz's in landing a 20 pound striper while standing hip deep in a brisk November surf! They grow 'em big here in New Jersey...20 to 40 lbs is not uncommon! But the limits are shorter further down the coast so, from Delaware south, 12 pounders are more the rule. Ain't no zzzz's in wading and casting a quick flowing trout stream, either, for that matter! You just keep those zzz's away from fishing, you hear?! Utter nonsense!

Dearest Whitman, I'm sure that no boredom is associated with the actual doing. It's the TV coverage that is a big yawn, but then I'm not apt to watch a lot of sports on TV that I might enjoy in person.

Well, fishing shows about going to places most folks never get a chance to fish or see are as old as television itself. Gaddabout Gaddis, The Flying Fisherman, had a show on for about 30 years, starting in the 50's, where he'd fly a small plane in to remote areas for fishing adventures. A travelogue of the great outdoors that was always fascinating . Then, of course, there was the famous "American Sportsman," that aired for years in the 60's, 70's and 80's. But if you're not into fishing, you probably wouldn't be drawn to these shows anyway.Nowadays, some of these guided fishing shows are fixed so that they keep getting shots of landing the same fish on bad days...a set-up, and a joke.And if you're talking about those bass "tournaments", PUHLEEEEASE! That's not fishing, that's a circus! Catch 'em, weigh 'em! Catch 'em, weigh 'em! Catch 'em, weigh 'em!

tsuwm noted: the Joy of Football / who plays baseball anyway?converting this to a word-related thread, and extracting from George Carlin:

Baseball is a nineteenth-century pastoral game. Football is a twentieth-century technological struggle.Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park. The baseball park! Football is played on a gridiron, in a stadium. In football you wear a helmet. In baseball you wear a cap.Football is concerned with downs - what down is it? Baseball is concerned with ups - who's up?In football you receive a penalty. In baseball you make an error.In football the specialist comes in to kick. In baseball the specialist comes in to relieve somebody.

In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line.

If ones' ability to offend must be defended, then it *follows that ones' need to defend must be offensive. So many analogies, so little time...

Would it be 'safe to say' that baseball is *alone in having the *defender originate the objects' play/motion... or is the object the bat? This, of course, excludes sports (such as pool) where the "objectives" are *often different. I can't give tsuwm all my strategy up front, now can I?

PS I'm jus try and to have some fun, I know cricket is older and staider than base ball and that the defense originates the play. It's just that these games that seem to delight in overly large scores, like cricket, basketball and American football, seem sort of... Wait, what did I do with that shovel now? Is this hole deep enough yet, baas?

"...that seem to delight in overly large scores...Let's not forget tennis... where the first and second scores are fifteen (where did that number come from?), the third is ten and the fourth doesn't even have a numeric value... and why is the person who hasn't *scored in "love"?

I received this from a Michiganian transplant in Florida. Jokes on her. I'm still driving around with my window down three days before Christmas. Kinda nice how this ties in both the Gesundheit and the football(if that's what you want to call what the Lions do for their millions).

Ever heard of real football? A game played in England dating back at least six hundred years between two villages usually about twenty miles apart. With no rules, no time limit and an unlimited number of players, the aim is to get the ball home to your teams local pub.

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